021722b

Last Contact

This world's alive!
(first one we found),
but the local bugs are based on good old RNA.
I suspect contamination,
but repeated tests confirm
there's no mistake;
these tiny critters, native to an alien world,
almost could be our virus cousins.

Sequencing the genomes,
we get hits, thousands of hits
from our database of genes;
Panspermia,
the theory that Earth life came from space,
is looking more and more
like the next big thing.

News conference next day;
That's when my assistant
starts coughing up blood;
antivirals stabilize her,
but provide no cure.

That's bad enough,
but now there's a tickle growing in my throat,
and I'm missing the brown,
polluted skies of Earth
so much more,
now that it's looking like
I may never see them again.